Harvesting Happiness Lisa Kamen

Originally published in The Huffington Post

When word hit that the nationwide joblessness rate for September was 7.8 percent, with 114,000 new jobs created, you could almost hear a collective, if measured, sigh of relief. But as the United States dips below 8 percent unemployment for the first time in almost four years, one group is still stuck in the unemployment quagmire: Nearly 11 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war Veterans were unemployed as of August, and among the 18-24 age group, the figure is closer to 1 in 4. That’s right: Nearly 25 percent of our young Veterans are unemployed.

Our young Gulf war II-era Veterans are facing job woes more dire than the national population has faced at any point in this unemployment catastrophe, including in October 2009, when the U.S. rate of 10 percent hurled the country into crisis mode. But as the national joblessness rate begins to show signs of a rebound, the Veterans job crisis has gone unanswered: A bill that would have created jobs for our military personnel was recently killed in Congress, leaving the men and women who fought for America overseas to fight for jobs on American soil.

So what’s a nation to do? Our collective goal should be to welcome our Veterans back into the workforce with empathy. The first step is to reverse the PTSD stigma that follows our Vets on every job interview and during every office interaction.

We’ve all heard stories about returning Veterans who snap and act violently when their PTSD flares up; each sound bite or headline normalizes these extreme cases in our nation’s consciousness. With these stories shaping our view on PTSD, it’s no surprise that in a 2010 Society for Human Resource Management poll, nearly half of the groups’ members state that PTSD poses a hiring challenge.

To erase the stigma, Harvesting Happiness 4 Heroes has implemented its Return to Duty Corporate Training program. Through the program’s one-day workshops, employers learn to communicate effectively with returning Vets. They receive crucial training on the physical and psychological challenges our warriors face, and gain the tools needed to help our Veterans apply their military skills in the workforce.

Steady jobs will renew our troops’ self-worth, fulfill their sense of duty to society, and give them strong roots that will help them transition into civilian life. And the benefits go both ways: When employers look past the stigma and help Vets re-enter the workforce, they allow society to grow from our troops’ skills, talents and desire to do good. If that’s not a good hiring decision, I don’t know what is.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Veterans returning from war can breathe a sigh of relief that the immediate, daily dangers of combat are behind them. But long after they step off the battlefield, our country’s warriors continue to fight a silent war that leaves invisible wounds just as painful as the physical ones endured during combat. Meet the emotional Improvised Explosive Device (IED) known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although many of our veterans endure the fallout of this silent bomb on a daily basis, most of us would hardly be able to recognize it.

Given that as many as one-third of returning Iraq War veterans are battling PTSD or depression as you read this post, it’s time to clear up the widespread misunderstanding about what this stress disorder is and what it is not. First, what it isn’t: PTSD is not a fabricated condition, and it’s not a bout of the blues that can be worked out in a counseling session or two. Further, it’s not a disorder that only affects veterans who have seen the worst of the worst. PTSD is prevalent, painful and persistent.

PTSD is an IED planted in the landscape of our veterans’ hearts and minds, triggering harm without a moment’s warning. Just as an IED destroys everything within a few miles’ radius, PTSD affects all aspects of a veteran’s life, often taking family and friends as extended casualties of this silent, invisible war. When the aggressor is PTSD, little escapes undamaged, whether we can see it or not.

If we can’t see PTSD, then how can we identify it? Understanding how it affects our veterans is a good starting point. The re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD are probably what you’ve heard of before: flashbacks and vivid nightmares of horrific war scenes, which can be triggered by even the smallest reminder of the atrocities of battle. PTSD also spurs avoidance symptoms, which cause a warrior to stay away from places, events or objects that remind him or her of painful experiences. The avoidance and re-experiencing aspects cause serious emotional issues that plague our veterans as they struggle to transition into civilian life: guilt, depression, emotional numbness, constant fear, and overwhelming tension that can make tasks as simple as eating and sleeping incredibly difficult.

The first step in combating PTSD is to raise awareness about this crucial issue affecting our veterans. Harvesting Happiness 4 Heroes carries out that mission everyday by offering free, stigma-free comprehensive services for returning warriors and their families, and by educating the public on the true costs of PTSD. It’s a battle we should all be fighting alongside our veterans.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

There’s an unspoken war going on within our military, and it’s not just happening on the battlefield. This silent conflict is imperiling our female soldiers in all the places where they should feel safest: on the base, in training, and in the company of their fellow service members. A military sexual trauma epidemic is sweeping across our armed forces, and one third of our female military personnel say they have fallen victim to this invisible wound.

More than 50 sexual assaults occurred per day between October 2010 and September 2011, with women being the most common victims and high-ranking men the most likely perpetrators. If there’s any doubt of the seriousness of this growing issue, just look to Lackland Air Force Base. At the Texas base, where every Air Force recruit receives training, more than 40 women have come forward with heart-wrenching stories of unwanted sexual advances at the hands of their instructors. The first instructor embroiled in the Lackland scandal was found guilty of raping one female recruit and sexually assaulting numerous others. A dozen other male instructors face charges and investigations. And with each passing day, more cases of MST are surfacing among women who until now have concealed their trauma out of fear.

MST is an unspoken war in which our women are pitted against a culture that says they’re to blame. The brave female veterans I work with describe a numbness that radiates through every aspect of their daily life, preventing them from experiencing emotions freely. They share stories of sleeplessness and shame. And they explain how the belief that they “asked for it” permeates through every discussion with the military officials tasked to tackle the MST problem. Without an avenue for emotional healing, these strong women who have given so much are left to cope alone.

But there’s a path to healing in this unspoken war: open discourse. By listening compassionately with a nonjudgmental ear, positive psychologists can help our veterans navigate the tough waters of MST and other emotional wounds of war. I’ve seen the pain turn to hope as these women acknowledge their strength in surviving assault; it can happen, but it takes mutual openness and a commitment to cutting out the stigma. It would take a lifetime to change the military’s culture toward women, and that’s why we need to provide our sexually traumatized veterans with immediate support and treatment.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Support for the Afghanistan War has hit rock bottom. In a May Associated Press poll, an overwhelming 66 percent of Americans disapproved of the war, with only 27 percent giving our Afghanistan conflict a stamp of approval. But whether we like the war or not, the troops fighting on behalf of America need our support. Our veterans are facing an unprecedented crisis in the form of PTSD, and this humanitarian issue has nothing to do with politics.

As many as one-fifth of the 2.6 million veterans deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq since 2011 battle PTSD, an anxiety disorder characterized by painful flashbacks and nightmares triggered without notice. As the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs struggle to provide veterans with access to treatment services, many warriors and their families are left to suffer through the daily pain of PTSD alone.

Wars are often controversial, but we haven’t seen this little public support for a conflict since the most protested years of the Vietnam War. And it seems that we’ve let our negative view of the war taint our view of the veterans fighting it just when they need our help.

When aid levels are low and need levels are high during a humanitarian crisis, Americans have a proven track record of generosity. Our donations flood in when our community nonprofits face critically low funding. We support communities during natural disasters whether they are domestic or international. When the devastating earthquake shook Haiti in 2010, American celebrities, politicians, community leaders and individuals from all sides of the political spectrum joined forces in an unprecedented aid campaign that raised $1.3 billion for the island nation. That humanitarian effort was all about the people; no matter our opinion of Haiti, we all gave what we had to help its communities thrive again.

Our community of veterans is facing its own humanitarian crisis: PTSD. With so many of our warriors struggling daily to overcome this debilitating condition, veterans need our support more than ever. It’s time to put politics aside and build a veterans aid movement from the ground level up.

Want to help but not sure how? My organization Harvesting Happiness 4 Heroes is just one of many community-based nonprofits providing stigma-free treatment for Veterans and their families. Visit our website to learn more.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

I present my gratitude manifesto. Before the pumpkin pie satisfies our collective sweet tooth, before the tryptophan in the turkey makes us sleepy, before the world starts counting down the minutes to Black Friday, let’s stop to reflect. I hit pause on my increasingly fast-paced life to express thanks. Gratitude. For our bodies, that carry us each day. For our liberty. Our free will. Our ability to live our lives as we want, to change our lives in an instant, to hold our happiness in our hands. I feel the deepest possible gratitude for our troops. For our soldiers and their loved ones, who make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, who fight for our well-being, for our freedom. We may not always agree with the crusades they are asked to take on, but even in that there is liberty, in the right to disagree, and that is gratitude-worthy. I was reminded just a few short weeks ago how grateful I am for the right to vote: in an election, in my daily life.

I am eternally grateful for family, friends, colleagues and invisible fans. For the ones who I am privileged enough to hold close, and for the ones I love from a distance. I express thanks for what we consider basic, food and shelter, which Hurricane Sandy again reminded us are not that basic. I am thankful for having enough food, enough shelter, enough gas, enough heat, enough electricity, enough transportation, enough, enough, enough everything.

Let us show gratitude for our love, empathy, compassion, strength of heart and ability to look, listen and hear what is said and that which is unspoken. Now is the time to honor our intuition, our sixth-sense, our moral compass, our inner true North, our souls, our spiritual practice (whatever that looks like). Thank you God – God as a noun, verb, adjective, action, or myth. Because we are lucky to have the right to believe, or not to believe.

Thank you universe, for the universe: the moon, sun, stars, planets and great mysteries of our galaxy and beyond, both seen and unseen. Thank you, feelings of wonderment and awe, for making me feel forever young. Thank you hope, optimism, courage, strength, resilience and belief in all possibilities – you carry us, even in the darkest, most difficult and uncertain of times.

I urge you to take a moment and express your thanks like I just did. It will feel all the more meaningful when you do.